Exploring the Capability Approach to Conceptualize Gender Inequality and Poverty in Fiji

This article highlights the gaps in Fiji's poverty literature, notably the persistent insensitivity to gender within mainstream approaches to poverty measurement. To address the androcentric biases in household analyses, the author suggests the capability approach as more suited to conceptualize and assess gender inequality and women's poverty within the household. This article uses the capability framework to indicate a space within which intrahousehold comparisons are made using empirical evidence from Fiji. The article explores the ways in which one could operationalize the methodologies for gender-sensitive measures of poverty, which are capable of reflecting the experiences of women and men.